Surveying the acronyms, slogans and victim names that serve as titles for measures introduced in Congress and other legislative bodies, some of which may graduate to the U.S. Code and other statute books.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

SARA Who?

Rep. Rick Crawford (R, AR) has introduced the Sexual Assault Reporting on Aircraft (SARA) Act of 2014, which would require the attorney general to collect data every calendar year about sexual offenses that occur on aircraft. The cheeky catch with the title, however, is that the SARA portion doesn't appear to be in reference to anybody that has been assaulted on a plane, or have any connection to sexual assault in general (besides being a very common female name). It seems that Congressman Crawford humanized the title without having a story to back up the acronym motive, which is an innovative (but questionable) move in regard to statutory titles. Personalized titles are quite common in regard to legislation (e.g. Megan's Law, Laci and Connor's Law, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, etc.). Yet all of those laws are in relation to actual persons that, unfortunately, have a tragic story attached to them. To my knowledge, the SARA Act of 2014 does not have a personal story attached to it, and is attempting to mask itself as a humanized title in order to gain political traction. I've written about personalized and humanized titles in the Connecticut Law Review and also in Legisprudence.